What sea level rise means to South Florida

By Maria Britos/Staff Writer
maria.britos@fiusm.com

For some time now, the topic of sea level rise has become a pressing issue for South Florida.

To help better understand the size of the problem, Peter Harlem, coordinator of the library’s Graphic Information System Center, has developed a series of maps that highlight the areas in South Florida that would be completely underwater within 100 years.

“The maps are really useful to help people get their mind around the problem,” Harlem said.

He said that, after a while of analyzing the visual representations, he realized how useful and important they are as well as how impacting they can be to the public.

His images have been very popular in the media. Last year, a stir was caused when multiple articles featured his maps in newspapers like the Miami Herald and WLRN Public Radio and Television.

Besides featuring on the School of Journalism’s documentary on sea level rise, “South Florida’s Rising Seas,” not everyone believed in Harlem’s work. Many scientists told him that he shouldn’t show these maps to the public because it causes commotion.

According to Harlem, insurance companies could increase their pricing and eventually lose a lot of profit once the city is underwater.

Today, he believes his work could potentially help not just the public, but also political figures in making better decisions about the way the environment is treated.

“Your generation is going to be dealing with a lot of the political issues that have to be resolved for us to move forward,” said Harlem.

Although the maps predict the water level will rise and drown South Florida in about 100 years, Harlem believes that if residents work together, then the sea level rise can potentially be prevented.

He said he will be publishing another research, inspired by the results of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change where he shows the relationship of how much sea level South Florida gains for every degree of temperature raised due to climate change.

The IPCC already shows that the Earth has gained 0.8 degrees of rising temperature in climate change. If fossil fuels are used continuously for energy, the Earth can end up with an addition of four degrees by the year 2100 and 28 feet of sea level.

“For every degree that we warm up the planet, we get 2.3 meters of sea level rise,” Harlem said.

The effects and changes that sea level rise can cause in South Florida, according to Harlem, are all interconnected. The real estate market can crash once homes are faced with flooding and insurance companies can raise the price of water protection.

Also, banks would be stricter in issuing loans to future homeowners, causing a headache to Florida’s economic state.

“People are going around saying somebody will fix it and there will be a magic fix to everything,” said Harlem.

What residents can do, Harlem said, is start taking advantage and get educated about the issue. Students interested in the topic can take classes that are geared towards sea level rise and the change that it will bring in South Florida.

Those who are interested in real estate and have knowledge on the issue can be one step forward than those who don’t. Engineers can start finding ways to deal with water infrastructure and architectures can design water resistant houses.

For sophomore engineering major Carlos Smith, sea level rise has been a bypassing topic.

“It’s always been a topic in the back of everyone’s mind,” said Smith. “I think more people should be worried about it.”

1 Comment on "What sea level rise means to South Florida"

  1. If fossil fuels are used continuously for energy, the Earth can end up with an addition of four degrees by the year 2100 and 28 feet of sea level.

    28 Feet? Really?

    That comes to nearly 100 mm/yr of sea level rise over the next 85 years. Current rates for South Florida tide gauges, according to data published by the Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level, are only as much as 3.7 mm/yr.

    One has to wonder when this over 25 fold increase in the rate is going to begin to happen.

    Steve Case – Milwaukee, WI

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